Thursday 27 November 2008

Information - Now You See It, Now You Don't

(Nov 27th, 2008)

Nothing suffers greater misinformation than information itself.

The common perception is to reduce it to the broadcasting of facts. The corollary is to think that the broadcasting of distorted facts is to deceive, or intentionally misinform.

As the first statement is wrong, the second follows suit.

The whole misconception resides basically in what is perceived as fact.

You may think is that fact is something that you are able to describe with the following elements: who/what, action, location, time and intent. This is correct, but it’s incomplete.

It’s a description, thus subjective to each one’s perception of each of the referred elements. Let me to exemplify through example, using three phrases:

- Kate McCann killed Maddie.
- Victoria DeBeers killed Janice.
- Jane Muldoon killed Sarah.

All phrases are equal in content: a first individual, female, described by first name and surname, an action verb, equal to all, and a second individual, also female, described only through a first name.

However, the brain reacts differently to each one, due to various factors, not the least the order they are presented.

Let’s see then how much information is deduced by the brain.

On the first statement, as both names are known, as is the situation, your brain jumped immediately to a judgment: either to agree or to disagree. At this stage, I’m not questioning the veracity of the statement, but the simple fact that I feel obliged to explain that, it implies that it has a truthfulness issue, although not written anywhere.

This is not applicable to the other two statements. In the first statement the personalities are known: the first individual as a female adult, mother of the second one, a child.

This rationale was carried to the other two.

Nowhere is written that both Victoria and Jane are mothers of Janice and Sarah, respectively. Nor that they first are adults, and the latter children.

No relationship is ever implied. All deduced, involuntarily.

Also, DeBeers is commonly perceived as an upper class surname, belonging normally to the richest of peoples, and this is why the brain assumes that Victoria is somewhat of a posh woman, no pun intended here.

When Jane’s name is read she is automatically categorized into a “commoner” sort.

The same applies to Janice and Sarah. But they don’t exist. Just names I invented. The pictures that you created in your mind were sculpted from information that your brain absorbed out of nowhere.

All deduction, nothing but deduction.

I could go on, but I think you do get the picture.

I’ve lead (or mislead) you into a certain line of thought, and you, although involuntarily, acted accordingly. I set the stage with the first statement, and then played along with the other two.

What happened is that as your brain received each stimulus it immediately began to search within your personal database on where and how to assimilate the information absorbed.

If I say “Manchester won” you react one way, but if I say “Manchester won a cricket match” your thought process is totally different.

Why? Simply because I changed the place, in the referred database, on where to link whatever it was that I meant by “Manchester”. If in the first instance the words “United” and “football” came up, they vanished as soon as the word “cricket” came up.

The mind is a wonderfully flexible gymnast.

It takes only the speed of light for you to alter the direction with which its little wheels and cogs are working on.

That database is with what you to define your own reality. Let’s just say that it’s the place where you store, and keep on storing, the various values with which you live by.

The “what” you refer to whenever you separate right from wrong.

Every single time you judge something or someone.

The way, and with what, that database is uploaded in your brain will have a determining effect on the way you conduct yourself in life.

And that is what information is. The background on which you base your values. The ones with which you opt whenever you decide anything.

Once you’re able to control this process on others, or at least influence it, the power is yours.

That is why the Media is so mighty. Not because of the stories they tell you, but of the way they influence your subconscious with them.

Not the facts, but everything that they tell you that surrounds them. It’s a blur, but your mind picks it all up.

To those reading and saying that they cannot be fooled, let me prove otherwise. Any magician’s act is the example of information management. The magician leads you in a fictitious reality that you assimilate as truthful. Not because he tells you, but because he shows you. Facts to be witnessed by your. All fake, but all taken for real. From a certain point onwards he’s the only one who knows reality as it really is, and everybody else is submerged in another one, totally different, totally unreal.

That is when magic happens, although it’s nothing else than the merging of these two realities.

And the better the magician, the furthest you were taken for a sucker.

I heard about the McCanns for the first time on a radio in my car. An English couple, on holiday in Algarve, upon returning from dinner had discovered that the daughter that they left at the apartment was missing.

Immediately my brain pictured a rowdy couple, him with a beer belly, and she with flip-flops on her feet, both drunkards..

Only a couple like that would leave their daughter alone in an apartment. Didn’t give the issue any more thought. Felt no pity. Later, in the evening, I was fed, via television, with all other relevant information. An upper class couple, educated, both doctors, both physically attractive, or at least media-friendly appearances.

With all this, it was not surprising that they conquered my immediate empathy.

Then I saw the child’s picture, and fell in love with her. I suffered with her, and for her. I was far, but I had been closer, I would have walked those streets from that day onwards.

But as time passed, something simply didn’t feel right in the database.

The facts kept on coming but they didn’t match up with the blur around them. September 2007 came as no surprise.

July 2008 brought only anger.

Anyone who says that it’s foolish to be fooled is the biggest fool of all.

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